Influential Women Who Got Sober

A woman with white hair and black shirt

 

Fame: a blessing and sometimes a curse. Celebrities in the spotlight have the great gift of being able to use their voice to influence people but can also feel like they are under a microscope. With society watching their every move, it can be difficult to admit they have a problem with substance abuse because everyone expects them to be perfect. But addiction doesn’t discriminate, influential women suffer from addiction as well. Below are ten beloved influential women who are sober.

Oprah Winfrey

Many people are surprised to hear that Oprah Winfrey is in recovery. She’s admitted on her talk show she struggled with cocaine addiction in her early 20s. She has since sought sobriety and has been living in recovery ever since.

Jamie Lee Curtis

Jamie Lee Curtis starred in many notable movies such as Halloween and The Fog. She is also known as one of the original Scream Queens. Throughout her career, she managed to succeed in genres outside of horror unlike many of her colleagues. During her career, she also elected to undergo plastic surgery. Painkillers are commonly prescribed to patients after surgery and ultimately were the catalyst for her addiction. She’s been quoted saying once she saw how her drug use affected her daughter she decided to get sober.

Jada Pinkett Smith

As far as the public is aware Jada Pinkett Smith has it all: a tight-knit family, a strong career, and seemingly ageless beauty. There was a point in time where she was drinking two bottles of wine a night and realized she had demons to overcome. In sobriety, she learned there are other tools to deal with pain.

Drew Barrymore

Drew Barrymore grew up in the public eye. She was seven years old when she filmed the movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. She started to experiment with drugs and alcohol while in the spotlight during the age of 9-12. She was able to overcome addiction and continues to act to this day while still looking amazing.

Demi Lovato

Within the past few years, Demi Lovato has made tabloid headlines. She publicly relapsed in July 2018 after being sober for six years and has In addition to having bipolar disorder, she battles with bulimia and self-harm. She has been very open with the public about her struggles in hopes her transparency will help others.

Eva Mendes

Eva Mendes became the subject of envy when she married Ryan Gosling. In 2008 she entered rehab and opened up about how she recognized she was in a life or death situation. It takes great strength to realize you need to seek help.

Edie Falco

Edie Falco is most recently known as Nurse Jackie, a hospital nurse addicted to painkillers. She also used her own life experience to help her relate to the character’s addiction. With over a century of recovery behind her, she says the support from her family and friends has helped her the most.

Kelly Osbourne

Kelly Osbourne is one of the original reality TV stars. The Osbourne family provided MTV with a lot of laughs but Kelly also spent time watching her father suffer from the effects of drug and alcohol abuse. She became addicted and sought out recovery while her parents were experiencing life-threatening health problems. She has now been living clean and sober for several years.

Nicole Richie

Nicole Richie is the daughter of a celebrity but became famous herself after appearing on a reality TV show, The Simple Life. Experimenting with drugs and alcohol as an adolescent led to addiction in her 20s but she found recovery after being arrested and seeking treatment.

Eliza Dushku

After fighting demons in Buffy the Vampire Slayer she battled her own addiction to drugs and alcohol. It was a harsh wake-up call when her brother told her that she couldn’t see her niece while she was under the influence. Eliza is now sober and openly talks about it to help other people struggling with addiction.Â

If They Can Do It, You Can Do It Too

Newport Beach Recovery Center is dedicated to helping those who struggle with addiction. We believe our gender-specific facility in sunny Orange County is a safe space for women to heal. We hope you find comfort in knowing you’re not alone and help is out there. Please reach out if you or a loved one is battling with substance abuse.

5 Inspiring Women in Recovery


In the world of recovery and addiction treatment, household names and celebrities have come to experience addiction and become leading women in sobriety. Despite their fallings to addiction, they were able to surpass the addiction and move forward with successful careers.

Jamie Lee Curtis

A household actress, who is known for both film and television roles of since the 1980s to present, has overcome a ten-year addiction that nearly took her life. After having an intensive surgery, she developed an opioid addiction to her prescribed pain killers. Curtis would become heavily anxious without her prescription and even embraced alcohol as a substitute to cease withdrawals until she got her next prescription. Curtis fought the battle for the next ten years, until receiving treatment that put her on the road to recovery. Since her sobriety began, she has focused her time and efforts around the addiction community and reaching out to those in need of assistance.

Drew Barrymore

Since her childhood, Drew Barrymore has experienced life in front of the camera. As a teenager, Barrymore found herself smoking pot daily and addicted to cocaine. Her addiction led her thankfully to rehabilitation a couple of years later, where she was able to grasp the addiction treatment she needed and sought recovery. Since making recovery, her acting career maximized,  and she has become a leading actress in numerous feature films, a success she accredits to her recovery. Barrymore promotes her recovery in her charitable efforts, and she is a prime example of the success that you can achieve in recovery after addiction treatment.

Demi Lovato

A loved and famed Disney Channel star, Demi Lovato battled the same peer pressures as girls her age and found stress relief through addiction in the form of cocaine and alcohol. After several years of a progressively worsening addiction, Lovato understood the seriousness of her addiction when she was unable to go for a half an hour without cocaine. At that point, she reached out for recovery assistance and was able to complete addiction treatment. She is now a leading spokesperson for addiction among teenagers. She cites the fact that recovery is an ongoing treatment and encourages teenagers that experience stress and peer pressure to utilize other outlets instead of turning to addiction.

Mary J. Blige

A hip-hop icon and a role model to women, Mary J. Blige is also a recovering addict who has become a successful leader in the Women in Sobriety community. Like many of those suffering from addiction, Blige’s journey to recovery has been a long one, since she was a substance abuse user for years to deal with childhood trauma and abuse. After seeking addiction treatment, Blige used her music as her true outlet for recovery. Even throughout her early years in her career, she was still suffering from substance abuse. She decided to take on true sobriety following the death of the icon, Whitney Houston.

Jada Pinkett-Smith

Another leading actress since the 1990s through present-day, Jada Pinkett-Smith has suffered from both substance abuse and alcohol abuse. Growing up in Maryland, Pinkett-Smith spent her early years around drugs. She even confessed to spending time as a drug dealer. While experimenting with drugs, her true addiction came in the form of alcohol, that became a daily habit. Pinkett-Smith decided that she did not want to have a career or family where she was dependent on alcohol. At that point, Pinkett-Smith took an addiction treatment and sought recovery. In 2017, she saw 20 years of recovery and is an advocate for women who are suffering from addiction.

Addiction is not subjected to only normal people. Celebrities and famous women find themselves fighting the same battles and suffering from the same struggles. These five women are role models for women across the United States and even the globe. Most of them have had careers that they suffered addiction during that time. What they have done, however, is embrace their sobriety and become advocates for addiction, shifting their role from actresses and musicians to include leaders of women in sobriety. Contact us today if you or a loved one are in need of help.